Author Archive
Sara Wachter-Boettcher, content strategist and author, knows web content inside out. In late February, she wrote an article for A List Apart, Future-Ready Content that has literally reframed the debate about responsive websites and the mobile first approach. Luckily for our industry, the thought-leader she is currently becoming on future-ready content (or why not call it responsiBLE content?) is familiar with the content challenges faced by higher ed as she has already helped a few institutions tackle the "C" issue. That's why I decided to invite her to be the keynote speaker of our upcoming Higher Ed Responsive Web Design...
Read MoreMarch Madness took an unexpected turn last week for K-State University when Basketball Head Coach Martin announced his decision to leave for South Carolina. While the news was announced through a very formal press conference held last Tuesday morning, President Schulz didn't quite follow the University President PlayBook when it comes to communications around bad news or crises. You know what I mean --sticking to traditional news outlets and keeping a distance with unhappy fans and mean critics. No, President Schulz didn't dodge the ball He caught it in mid-air and scored in a very refreshing, authentic and human way by......
Read MoreWhile others were having some good April's Fool fun with their homepage, the University of Notre Dame quietly launched a revolutionary homepage yesterday afternoon. This could well be the Holy Grail of higher ed website design: a web design based on the mobile first approach that serves content on any devices using a combo of responsive web design techniques and server side detection to reduce the load for mobile (as the concept was explained by Dave Olsen a few weeks ago). Here's a quick look at the before and after screenshots on different widths: BEFORE AFTER And, here's a screenshot of the desktop version: Make sure...
Read MoreIf you've read this blog for a bit, you know that I'm a strong believer in data-driven marketing decisions. What's so wonderful with the online world is that we can tag, track, segment and analyze almost anything our target audiences do. After I realized in 2010 that we didn't use online analytics as much as we could in higher education, I tried to start a revolution (or a crusade?) to change this and help our industry (and your institutions) see how data can really help everybody make decisions, prioritize budgets and even spend time only on what works the best. Over the...
Read MoreYou have exactly 5 days to come up with a great topic for a session at eduWeb 2012. The conference will take place in Boston from July 30 to August 1st, but the call for proposals will close this Friday. This year I'm chairing the Marketing Conference Track, and I'm looking for sessions from executives and professionals working in institutions (and only a few very good ones from vendors). I already have secured the participation of few high-profile higher ed presenters (Rachel Reuben, Georgy Cohen, Rick Allen, Stephanie Geyer among others) in my track, so you will be in very good company. And,...
Read MoreIn the latest issue of LINK published on Tuesday a video caught my eyes. Not the new (and quite unconventional) admissions video by the University of Rochester - although I totally love it and share the love on Twitter last week. No, what caught my attention in Dave Tyler's Link Boxers column this month was another admissions video, an admissions from another world featuring beer, blood, horror and... a campus tour. Haven't heard of it yet? Stop a minute and watch it now - with more than 2 million views on YouTube, you can say, it has become an overnight classic. Wow. Really? How did...
Read MoreA few weeks ago I received in the mail a review copy of The Art of The Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business by Peter Coughter. Since I'm getting back on the conference circuit this year after taking a year off, I thought reading this book could help me get my inner presenter back into the groove. While I know my marketing and communication classics, I have to admit that I don't have a good knowledge of the advertising industry. As a result, I had never heard about the author, Peter Coughter, before I receive the review copy of his...
Read MoreExactly 6 months ago - on September 12, 2011 - I welcomed the first class of the Web Analytics for Higher Ed 4-week online course Joshua Dodson and I designed. Today, the students from the 5th session of this course exclusively targeted to people working in universities and colleges are a few days shy from completing their final project. And, the next session starting next Monday is... sold out! 6 months, 5 sessions, 50 students and 24 awarded certificates in Web Analytics for Higher Ed (final grades are due next week for the 5th session, so we'll have more next week): what...
Read MoreFacebook unlocked the Timeline format for Pages only a week ago. As usual with changes on Facebook, the higher ed community has been very quick at adopting the new feature. I was curious to see what some of the early adopters in higher education had done with this long-expected new format (when it was released for Facebook profiles, many wished it for their Pages). It's available as a preview to every Page Admin for now, so the switch is still optional. However, it will be rolled out to all Facebook Pages on March 30, 2012. So, I did a bit of totally unscientific...
Read MoreIf you work on a campus, you know that mobile has now become a top priority in higher education. Whether you have already implemented a mobile solution alone or with a vendor, it's always smart to (re)assess best practices in higher education. Helping you in this process is the main goal of the Higher Ed Mobile Summit, a 3-webinar series scheduled on March 13, 14 & 15, 2012. Next week, in just 3 hours (1 hour on 3 consecutive days because I know how precious time can be these days), you can learn all you need to know to make...
Read MoreI believe in the Responsive Web Design (RWD) approach (don't worry, among other things in life :-) I've published several posts about RWD in the past few months. I focused on RWD in my February column for University Business. I asked Stewart Foss from eduSyle to design a 4-week online course about RWD for our industry and Nick DeNardis to do a technical review of the syllabus. I even attended the first session of this course as student (and didn't perform too well actually, as teaching a course on social media marketing campaigns for higher ed at the same time did took all that...
Read MoreThat's a question I've been working on for a few weeks, ever since the latest Noel-Levitz report (PDF) on the mobile behaviors and expectations of prospective students finally provided us with some hard data on the most valuable pieces of content for this target audience. In a follow-up post arguing for an Admission-First approach for mobile in higher education, Seth Odell declared that "higher ed has missed the mark with mobile." Here's how Seth came to this conclusion: "For the last few years higher education has been largely designing mobile sites with one audience in mind – the campus community. A quick...
Read MoreUPDATE (9:30AM - Feb 21): An important typo in the % of existing mobile solutions was fixed in the report. A few weeks ago I conducted the second survey about the State of Mobile Web in Higher Ed to provide the community with some insights on the mobile web in our industry. The first survey was run last year at about the same time. This year again, this online survey was a big success as a total of 281 professionals working mainly in the marketing, communication and web offices of 267 institutions of higher education completed it from January 9, 2012...
Read MoreAs you might know if you are a regular reader of this blog, I designed and authored the capstone graduate online course of the MBA in Social Media at SNHU (which happens to be the 12th most innovative organizations in the world according to Fast Company, no wonder Seth Odell from Higher Ed Live and Karlyn Morrissette Borysenko work there). So, when Erica Moss, social media outreach coordinator for Georgetown University’s online MSN degree program, pitched me a story about less-than-optimal social media class assignments, she got my attention. Not because the activities I designed for the SNHU graduate course or...
Read MoreThe lead-generation websites for for-profits have used infographics to increase the number of links and social shares as part of their marketing strategy for several months. And, this is "linkbait" strategy has been VERY successful with many mentions in Mashable (including this recent article on how higher ed institutions use social media). I've already said on this blog, that it would make a lot of sense for the non-profit institutions to use infographics in the same way. So, yesterday, when I got pitched by email about the infographic University College, the college of professional and continuing studies at the University of...
Read MoreMy latest University Business column is now available in the February issue as well as online: " Responsive Web Design in Higher Education: One Design to Rule Them All?" In this column, I make the case for Responsive Web Design in higher ed by sharing some data, examples and tips from early adopters (even the father of RWD himself, Ethan Marcotte). If you need to convince your boss to give you some time to work on RWD (or even maybe to sign you up for the 4-week online course on RWD for higher ed taught by Stewart Foss through my professional development...
Read MoreUPDATED on Jan 27, UWGB and other institutions got their official pages back, for details, check the bottom of this post. After reading Todd Sanders' blog post on how the official UWGB Facebook page was hijacked by Facebook (basically by switching the institutional page with the "community-generated" FB page), I asked Wednesday morning on Twitter and Facebook if anybody else in higher education had noticed any change. Twitter / @karinejoly: Facebook has stolen offici ... And, it looks like a few other institutions are in the same boat including Ithaca College, Monroe CC, Radford University, etc. Check yours and let us know if your...
Read MoreYou might not know it, but I maintain a Google calendar of higher ed events and conferences where I keep track of anything interesting for web and marketing teams working in universities and colleges. It's a useful tool, but here's a selection (in chronological order) of the most interesting events with deadlines for registration, call for proposals and other interesting information like registration fees. Web Redesign Bootcamp -3-Webinar Series - February 7-9, 2012 What you need to know to get ready for your next web redesign This webinar series will feature 4 great higher ed web redesign experts: Stewart Foss (eduStyle), Mike Richwalsky (JCU),...
Read MoreWebsite redesigns are a fact of life in higher education. And, that's why our yearly Web Redesign Boot Camp webinar series (Feb 7-9, 2012) is always very well-attended as it provides practical tips and useful advice for web redesign projects in higher education as well as a good overview of the latest trends in our field. Another great way to keep an eye on the state of web design in higher education is to follow EDU Checkup, Nick DeNardis' video blog. Every week or so, Nick selects a higher ed website, reviews and grades it. He has done it since October 2008...
Read MoreFacebook finally rolled out its new profile format, Timeline, to all users before the holiday break. Beyond sharing in a timeline format all you ever did on Facebook (that is if you don't edit your privacy settings), your new Facebook user profile has now a reserved space for a Cover Photo, the equivalence of the big banner image that is so popular on higher ed homepages - and other websites or blogs. Some Facebook users have already come up with some VERY creative (or just plain fun like the one Todd Sanders, aka @tsand, from UWGB used on his profile as shown...
Read MoreSince the first edition of my survey about the State of the Mobile Web in higher education last year, more research about the topic has been conducted by vendors (Inigral & Stamats), organizations (Educause) and the Mobile evangelist in our industry, Dave Olsen. As you probably know if you are a regular reader of this blog, I always try to run my surveys on a yearly basis as I'm interested in measuring how trends evolve in higher education. That's the main reason for this 2nd edition of the survey about the State of the Mobile Web in Higher Ed. Whether or not...
Read MoreI've already said (and written) it many times: one of the things I love the most in higher education is the fact that we can (and have the duty to) learn all the time. No matter how the learning happens, it is always nurtured, welcomed and valued in our small community (and, I know, it makes sense as we are in the business of educating others whether we actually teach or not). Since I started to work in higher education (wow, it's going to be 10 years in a few months), I've learned a great deal of things, skills and lessons. Beyond...
Read MoreI love holidays cards - and by looking at the recent web traffic on my Holidays Cards post from last year, I'm probably not the only one in the higher ed community. Earlier this week, I asked the readers of my weekly newsletter (not a subscriber yet?) if they could send my way links to their 2011 holidays video cards (video is a great medium for this genre as it can convey emotions so well). I also got some suggestions via Twitter. After reviewing all of them (while eating some well-deserved chocolate), here's the selection of my favorites 2011 holidays videos (in...
Read MoreAs I explained in the first post on this series about responsive web design in higher education, I interviewed a few early adopters of the responsive web design approach as part of my research for an upcoming column in University Business. After Stewart Foss, eduStyle Awards founder and the instructor of the 4-week online course on responsive web design for higher education, here's the interview I conducted with Erik Runyon, Manager of Interactive Development at AgencyND, the inside agency of the University of Notre Dame. His institution launched its redesigned responsive homepage in July 2011, a redesign that got the...
Read MoreFollowing in the footsteps of Tuft University that started to accept videos in place of traditional essays last year, the University of Dayton has decided to offer to its prospective students the opportunity to make an "audiovisual" impression as part of their college application and... get a chance to win a $40,000 scholarship over 4 years at the same time. This scholarship contest, embedded in the college application process, is an original twist on recent social media campaigns conducted by different institutions. Video contests are not new in higher education, but what's different this time is the fact that the winning...
Read MoreI've just completed my article about responsive design in higher education. It will be published in University Business in a couple of months (February 2012 issue). I did a few extensive interviews with early adopters as part of my research for this piece. As usual, I could only use a fraction of what I found. I only had 1400 words. But, thanks to the Web, I can make sure you get to see the rest of what these early adopters in higher education had to say about responsive web design (RWD) - and long before the article is published! So, let's...
Read MoreMy latest University Business column is now available in the November/December issue as well as online: "Time to Get Strategic With Content" In this column, I explain why content strategy is worth the time and how to get started. I also share a few examples of content strategy in action in universities and colleges - including the comprehensive multi-channel content strategy currently in process at Indiana University of Pennsylvannia. If you want to learn about this specific example, you can read the interview I did with Michael Powers about this initiative. You should also know that Mike will present a full...
Read MoreAccording to the study conducted by Archrival on 24 US campuses (n=500 with a +/-4.25% margin of error), three quarters of current students won't probably bother scanning your QR codes (thanks to 2code for the tip). While the majority knows what QR codes are, only 21% managed to scan the one used for this research. So, technology could be the culprit. Anyway, the main results of this study are summarized in the following infographics. Do you use QR codes on your campus? Any traffic data to share with us? Please post a comment if you do.
If iPads are on the holiday gift lists of many, the tablet itself is definitely the mind of more and more print magazine editors in higher education. After online versions, social media channels and mobile versions, iPad applications (or should I say solutions) have become the next thing to get for people in charge of institutional or alum magazines. While the Responsive Web Design approach I mentioned earlier might be the cross-device silver bullet for all the digital versions of magazines as well, I recently came across an easy-to-use and not prohibitvely expensive solution to get the sought-after iPad app for the...
Read MoreHow do you like your site? Web? Mobile? How about Responsive? As my cutting-edge technically-oriented readers already know (but I love you the same even if you don't yet ;0), Responsive Web Design wasn't exactly born yesterday. The term was coined in an article written by Ethan Marcotte and published in May 2010 on A List Apart. While Marcotte, the de-facto Founding Father of the Responsive Web Design approach (and its biggest evangelist), has already written a book about it, RWD still doesn't have an article of its own in Wikipedia where the only reference I found about it was this very...
Read MoreIn our industry mobile is the new black, right? More seriously, as you know, it is the future of web browsing - and thus, it would be plain stupid to ignore it. So, if you don't have a mobile solution yet, chances are you are currently working on it or planning it. According to the survey on the state of the mobile web in higher education I conducted in February 2011, 37% already had a mobile solution while 57% planned to implement a solution within the next 12 months. I'm always happy to feature the work of others on this blog,...
Read MoreDid you get a chance to check out UF new homepage yet (scroll down for the screenshots)? It launched at the beginning of this week as announced in the news story published last week by the university. According to the story, this isn't a web redesign per se as the project only covered the visual aspect of the web presence: "The new “skin” maintains all links previously found on the UF homepage and reflects the design UF&Shands originated for its Web presence, which is currently in transition." Reskinning a website before a redesign? That's kind of a novel (strange?) approach. I sent a few questions...
Read MoreIn higher ed, content strategy is starting to get some serious attention at conferences, on blogs or Twitter. While theoretical advice abounds, it's still tough to find higher ed professionals or executives who have been given the latitude to work on a comprehensive content strategy at the institutional level. Tough, but not impossible.
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